I’m CEO of Digital Power Group, a tech and investment advisory, a Senior Fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a Faculty Fellow at the school of Engineering & Applied Science at Northwestern University, on the boards of the Marshall Institute, a think tank focused on space and missile defense, and Notre Dame's Reilly Center for Science, Technology & Ethics. I co-authored the energy-tech book "The Bottomless Well," was the tech strategist for a boutique venture fund, a tech advisor for Banc of America Securities, and co-authored a tech investment newsletter. I served in the White House Science Office under President Reagan, and studied physics at Queen’s University, Canada, and Rutgers. I may hold positions in or advise companies mentioned.

Okay, start with this first because it’s the only work of fiction in this group of three, an SF thriller in Michael Crichton tradition. (BTW, Crichton’s posthumous Micro is worth the read too) Suarez’s story is about the immediate future. In fact, it’s barely science fiction since it pivots on technology readily available or emerging right now. The plot concerns autonomous drone swarms attacking Americans across the country and around the world, from an unknown enemy, in frighteningly efficient terrorist-like strikes. There’s a hero, a love story, etc. But the machines, and action sequences, are the compelling parts. As is the terrifying opening scene.

If you’re into this type of thriller, Suarez rises to the quality of Vince Flynn, but with a deeper tech bent. His drones are frightening and credible. Even if you’re not a techie, the story sweeps you along. And if you’re interested in drones, autonomous micro drones too, and nuances of uber Internet hackers, odds are you’ll learn more about where technology is taking the world reading Kill Decision than a lot of the trade literature. Suarez is a tech systems consultant, knows his stuff, and his characters explain it well. This is a great book to read on an airplane or for that last weekend at the beach. And the subject of drones couldn’t be more timely as we continue to expand their lethal efficacy abroad and explore wider deployment of them at home. Suarez explores the combination of the two, run amok.

This important book by a U. Cal Berkeley economics professor contains vital insights and data about the nature of jobs in our new economy. The thesis he unveils is, at its core, extraordinarily encouraging because American innovators have so much untapped potential. Moretti gets special points for observing that Friedman’s The World Is Flat thesis is simply wrong. In Moretti’s opinion “…the data don’t support this view.” And “Despite all the hype about the ‘death of distance’ and the ‘flat world’, where you live matters more than ever.” One of the book’s subtitles for instance is “Your Salary Depends More on Where you Live Than on Your Resume.”

The first two-thirds of Moretti’s book is rich with both data and examples – well worth the read. I thought he somewhat lost his focus in the latter part of the book – but that doesn’t matter. The cogent analysis in the first two-thirds is the critical essence. Moretti notes that innovation-centric jobs have a multiplier effect: they create other jobs, and at triple the rate of standard manufacturing jobs. You won’t find Moretti calling this phenomenon the pejorative (and incorrect) “trickle down,” but instead he explains that this is how economies (productively) work. He notes that the beneficial economic multiplier is thus not all about techies, but about all the jobs that innovation’s wealth and multiplier creates. For example, he notes that of the “top ten cities for waiters, three are purely tourist destinations but seven are cities with a strong high-tech presence.” And Moretti’s data shows that the service workers in the geographically-enriched cities make a whole lot more money than in the less innovation-centric places. In fact, his data shows that where people and policies favor the high-wage innovation workers, those with high-school degrees make a better income than those with college degrees do in the less favorable cities.

One of Moretti’s conclusions has relevance to the ‘fairness’ argument in play today. Moretti notes that highly skilled innovation workers certainly get paid a lot more than the average folk. But he finds that a high concentration of such workers creates “human capital externalities.” He writes that the “existence of human capital externalities is good news for less educated workers in highly educated cities, because it means that they end up earning more than they would otherwise earn” In fact, Moretti reaches the conclusion that “well-educated workers are not fully compensated for the social benefits that their education generates.” [emphasis added] Quite a conclusion, and an inversion of the fairness argument.

Aside from evaluating the nature of the jobs-innovation landscape, Moretti also attempts to proffer ideas on policies to facilitate and encourage more of the beneficial gains from innovation’s job boosting, but he struggles with this. That too is not so important as seeing and understanding the facts. The Earth ain’t flat, and where you are and what you do matters.

Writer and Wired correspondent Blum is perhaps the millennial generation’s John McPhee, chronicling an arcane journey of deep relevance to everyday life. Blum, curious about the physical architecture of the Internet, sets out to visit the people and geographic locations of hardware that underlie the ubiquitous smart screens. He visits network operating centers, finds fiber cable landings, watches a transatlantic cable being brought ashore, visits the bowels of data centers and network rooms to see the racks of routers, servers and pulsing fiber. For Blum, it’s a revelation to discover that: “On a daily basis it may feel as if the Internet has changed our sense of the world; but undersea cables showed how that new geography was traced entirely upon the outlines of the old world.”

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